Griffins don't 'get started on time,' drop second straight game to second straight Illinois-based opponent

The Grand Rapids Griffins have fared particularly well in November, boasting a 6-and-2 record heading into Friday night's game against the Rockford IceHogs, but they find themselves mired in a two-game losing streak at present, dropping a 3-2 decision to Chicago on Wednesday and a 4-3 decision to Rockford on Friday. The Griffins' website recounts the details thereof:

November 27, Griffinshockey.com: For the fourth time in their last nine outings, the Griffins fell
behind 1-0 before the game was five minutes old. At the 2:32 mark,
Jassen Cullimore took a shot from the left point that was denied by
[Thomas] McCollum, but Pete MacArthur banged home the rebound from the doorstep.

Grand Rapids tied matters with 1:45 remaining in the frame,
prompting a cascade of 1,000 stuffed animals to rain down from the
stands as part of the team’s 10th annual Teddy Bear Toss to benefit
Hug-A-Bears of Kent County. Speeding down the right boards, Francis
Pare dropped a pass inside the Rockford line for Evan McGrath, who
ripped a shot from the top of the circle past Alec Richards’ blocker.

The IceHogs (10-11-2-1) grabbed another lead midway through the
second, as Kyle Greentree finished off an odd-man rush by potting
Bracken Kearns’ pass from the left side for a 2-1 lead at 9:37.
Rockford then increased its advantage to two thanks to a fortunate
bounce at the 18:03 mark, when Akim Aliu’s try from below the goal line
banked off McCollum’s stick and into the net.

A turnover in the Griffins’ zone resulted in a Nathan Davis goal and
a short-lived 4-1 lead for the visitors 3:54 into the third period, but
[Mattias] Ritola answered during a goal-mouth scramble 2:03 later to cut Grand
Rapids’ deficit back to two.

[Tomas] Tatar pulled the Griffins within one at 11:52, tapping home a Jan
Mursak pass to extend his goal streak to three games and his point
streak to four, but Grand Rapids could get no closer.

November 28, Grand Rapids Press: "That's the second game now where we've turned too many pucks over and
made some real poor individual decisions out there. Really poor,"
Fraser said. "And we've got to find a solution to it real fast."

Said Evan McGrath, who scored a first-period goal: "No excuses, we just
didn't come out firing like we had been. We didn't play as well as we
wanted to in Chicago (a 3-2 loss Wednesday night), and it just carried
over into tonight."..."You can't win games playing one period," McGrath said. "We thought we
had a great third, but the first and second killed us. It's tough to
come back against a team that works that hard."

Fraser took no solace in the Griffins' comeback after the way his team started the game.

"Our
defense, not very good. Our forwards were sluggish the first two
periods, and we got outworked," Fraser said. "It just doesn't happen
with our hockey team. Another learning moment for us tonight."

Wings fans have heard this line before:

"You're supposed to learn to start on time here," Fraser said. "I
thought Rockford was a step faster than us the entire night, and that
just can't happen in any game."

As the Griffins complete their Illinois weekend triumvirate in Peoria today (playing the Blues' AHL affiliate as the Red Wings play in St. Louis), Zuidema reports that they have Jakub Kindl in tow as he returned from a bruised foot vs. Rockford.